The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-09-14
COERCION A FAILURE.

an admitted principle, not only among
individuals, but among communities.
Herbert Spencer, in his invaluable little
work on education, tells Us how mis-
taken it is to correct children by whip
ping them. He points out that such q
course is criminal because it ruins a
good disposition, sours bad
one, and conveys false notion
of life by substituting for a natu-
raj punishment an unnatural and
illogical one. He insists that the pun
ishment of children should be the
natural effects of their wrong doing,
and points out, in an interesting way,
the method of accomplishing this re-
suit.
The prosecutions of religious sects
and political parties in the worlds his
tory, have resulted in the growth of the
sects and parties prosecuted. and IN the
spread OF their dreaded doctrines. Two
centuries of coercion have not made
the Irish the loyal people that coercion
There are two methods of dealing
with the Mormon problem. One is the
method of coercion; the other, the
method of reason. The method of
coercion is represented by the agrees
sive Liberals in our midst, who have
been chiefly instrumental in securing
anti Mormon legislation. The method
of reason finds representatives among
the many friends of Mormon worth,
both a. home and abroad, aud among
all who are sufficiently enlightened to
see that the lash is not an argument.
The opponents of coercion have secured
laws which punish men for ackdowledg
ing wives married third of a cen
fury before any anti-polygamy law had
been enacted; which disfranchise polyg-
amists on a test oath; which abolish
woman suffrage; which have made
belief barrier to the elective franchise:
which render it probable that shortly
no Mormon can be found on any civil
or criminal jury in the Territory
among a multitude of other statutes
and interpretations thereof which bear
with a heavy hand upon a people
almost universally admitted to be a
desirable class of citizens, except in a
single feature. Not only this, but more
legislation is demanded; regret is
expressed that an army corps did not
accompany the first through train to
settle Mormonism by martial law; the
lives and motives of Mormons are con-
sSantly lied about and abused; their
religion is brutally assailed and the
ordinary features of their worship
made the objects of an unfeeling jocu-
larity; they are incapable of doing any
thing to merit even faint praise; their
history is without any redeeming
feature; they are so unutterably bad
that there is no permanent cure for the
situation this side of emigration.
Such extreme views and unreasonable
demands, put forth with the venom
that has characterized the local anti
Mormon press, have engendered q
local bitterness against the Mormons
that is most serious menace to good
order. So completely have the I'M
thinking and unphilosophical become
the dupes of lying press, that an anti
Mormon mob would materialize with
but little conjuring. This country need
never fear Mormon mobs; but beware
of anti-Mormon mobs.
The method of reason is the method
OF moderation. The contest in Utah. |
said Henry Ward Beecher, is one 10 be
settled by moral agencies.
To have granted amnesty to al po-
and bave permitted them to
meet their obligations to their wives; to |
have punished all future infractions OF |
the law: 10 have encouraged mission |
schools and churches among US; to |
h ave applied the method of love and |
to have shown US that you were our
friends, would have been philosophical.
The Mormons should have been pun
ished for their crimes alone; to have
robbed them of the right of sitting on
juries and a score of other rights Justly |
dear to free men, is a peculiar method
Of working out results.
Congress may far more reasonably
undo much it has done, than go farther.
WHERE, Oh where, is the Four-bit
League And where is HolIister, its